Preemptive Planning

Local authorities and the govt are perhaps two of the most cursed things in India, after our very own legendary Ravindra Jadeja. Each and everyday, we end up cursing some or the other thing related to the administration, ranging from unfilled potholes or the roads which havnt been refurbished after the extended spell of monsoon that the city enjoyed. Yet, since the time I have come to Hyderabad, the HUDA (or whoever is the concerned authority) if it hasnt managed to be the best local development authority, then I would surely rank it above many places I have been to till date.

The whole life, according to me is nothing but a matter of balance, and it is in maintaining this balance that HUDA has more or less succeeded in the, almost 5.5 years I have spent in the city of Nizams. Sure, we shall always have our problems, the roads in old city will always be crowded and congested. The diversions in Hitech City, shall always be hijacked by a group of people, unable to quench their thirst of spending more hours working, taking (supposedly) illeagl shortcuts to reach office early. Still, with such problems which every major establishment shall face with the increase in population, specially the IT inspired population explosion that Hyderabad has experience in past few years.

Such a explosion is bound to fail all the existing systems of a city, yet somehow Hyderabad, much to its credit hasnt yet choked fully. You can still see open spaces, you can still find empty tracts of road, you can still travel 8-9 kms in 20 mins or so. Hyd, as I said, has been about maintaining balance, it hasn’t gone the Mumbai, Bangalore way and as a result making people spend major part of their days on road. Neither has it been lucky like Noida and specially Greater Noida, with having lots of space to extend and huge amounts of capital investment to support the impending infrastructure development. Greater Noida, when inhabited shall be a city to marvel, yet as of now, it just seems a lot of money invested to build lots of houses and lots of good roads, with no people to use them.

One major part of development of Hyd, since the time I have come here is the preemptive planning, a point, which, Not many planners around the country are taking into account. I still remember, once upon a time, the Nagarjuna Circle, used to be one of the busiest places in hyderabad, and was touted (perhaps misgivingly) as one of the busiest circles in Asia. Yet, just the construction of a simple flyover at the place, has decreased that problem by orders of magnitude. That was one example of taking action after encoutnering the problem, a strategy missing in almost all cities, where things are mostly allowed to Let It Be. Chandrababu Naidu, shall be thanked for inculcating a flyover culture in Hyderabad. After the construction of this flyover, the PVNR Express Way was also more of example of acting at the problem. The examples of preemptive planning are the new flyovers which have come up/are coming up in Hitech City and near Gachibowli (respectively). Agreed, the traffic at the Cyber Towers circle has increased exponentially in the last few years. But in no situation had the problem exaggerated to the extents of needing a new flyover. Similarly the situation at Gachibowli circle commanded even lesser attention than Cyber Towers, yet we do have a flyover construction in full force there as well, and, shall sooner than later, be welcomed by the sight of a new one. Yet, the most shocking part was, when I observed, what could only be the building blocks of new flyover near the Begumpet flyover.

I guess, for once we should thank the Authorities in Hyderabad, for trying to do their best in an endeavour to make the lives of us Hyderabadis simpler and more convinient.

Pune’s admin & municipality unfortunately suck big time – the undone bridges parallel to Holkar bridge, Yerewada bridge, Kalyani Nagar – Viman Nagar junction are good enough proof of that. Magarpatta city is built beautifully but it being a compounded society does not bring much prosperity to the surrounding regions (Hadapsar, Kharadi). Though the big industries towards Chakan, Akudi, Nigdi have promoted development & they have come up nicely, but still they are far off from the main city & commuting remains a problem.

Totally, I too found that it’s one of the few places where traffic is still under control.
But did you see how foolish it was to build the bridge near Cyber Tower? Its just the opposite of what people thought it would be. Ignorance, I believe.